HP 64Bit Notebook MCE to Vista upgrade options?

  • Thread starter Thread starter SoCalFred
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SoCalFred

I purchased a HP 64bit Notebook with MCE 2005 in November.
I have ordered the "Free" Vista Express upgrade and the papers for the order
say I will receive:
1. Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit DVD
2. HP Driver DVD.
Based on the above it appears that the Express Upgrades are only specific
system vendor dependent and are not specific machine dependent.

My first upgrade option appear to be.
1.. An inplace upgrade of MCE2005 to 32 bit Vista Home Premium.

Or could I do the following second upgrade option.
1. Use a partion management software application to reduce my C drive
partion size in half since I have lots of space.
2. Create a new active partition in the unused space now on the drive.
3 Purchase a Vista retail Home Premium upgrade package
4. Perform a custom install of Vista 64 bit Home Premium in the new
partition by initiating it from the MCE partition..
5. After I have moved all my data files and settings over and have
reinstalled my applications on Vista 64 and everything works fine I would
delete the MCE partition and expand the Vista partition to fill the drive or
just use the MCE partition as a data partition

If the second option is possible is it also possible to do both options 1
and 2, in other words after having done the inplace upgrade to Vista 32 to
then upgrade to Vista 64bit home premium at a later date by creating the new
partition and ther retail upgrade package.

As you can tell my objective is to get to Vista 64 Home Premium at resonable
cost and it is not important that I do that rigthaway.

Fred
 
Hi,

It should work, but a lot depends on the nature of the disk being provided.
You'd have to talk to HP about that. There is no upgrade path from 32 to 64
bit, so this is why choosing 64 (option 2) allows you to create a new
installation.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
I am not looking for any "It should work answers" I am looking for "It will
work answers" since I would not have the questions if I did not think that
it should work. Hopefully Colin or another poster in this newsgroup that
really seems to know what is and what is not possible will provide a
complete response.
I expect a real mess the next couple of weeks since MS has not release any
comprehensive document to either the stores or the internet on what will and
what will not work and the poor sales staffs will not at all be capable of
asking reasonable solutions to customer upgrade situations.
 
No one can possibly know for certain yet, as the disks have not been
publicly released so no one has them to mess with and experiment to verify
what they can and cannot do. Your best source of information on the disk's
capabilities is the supplier.

From the information given by you, there is no *technical* reason that you
cannot do what you propose. However, HP may have placed blocks or
restrictions on certain usages of the disk, so there is no way anyone here
can possibly foresee them. The best answer I or anyone here is going to be
able to give is that it should work based on the information we currently
have.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
I thought that maybe some of the monitors of this newsgroup had access to
express update disks allready and would know the answers.
Since I am not in a hurry I will wait and see what appears to work and not
work over the next couple of weeks.
 
No. An upgrade edition will upgrade the system volume (MCE). An upgrade
edition does not support setting up a dual boot system. You will need a
full edition for that.

The Anytime Upgrade editions are like OEM editions. The product key will
not support changing from x86 to x64. You will need a retail upgrade edtion
product key and an x64 dvd to do that.
 
OK. It will not work.

SoCalFred said:
I am not looking for any "It should work answers" I am looking for "It will
work answers" since I would not have the questions if I did not think that
it should work. Hopefully Colin or another poster in this newsgroup that
really seems to know what is and what is not possible will provide a
complete response.
I expect a real mess the next couple of weeks since MS has not release any
comprehensive document to either the stores or the internet on what will
and what will not work and the poor sales staffs will not at all be
capable of asking reasonable solutions to customer upgrade situations.
Click to expand...
 
Darrel Gorter has been the only MS person to give us answers on these issues
so far and he only had a retail Ultimate upgrade edition product key to
experiment with. Don't count on OEM and Anytime Upgrade software behaving
the same as retail software. In the past when vendors have sold the old OS
preinstalled and a coupon for the new OS, they have not provided retail
upgrade software. It has been OEM upgrade software specific to the computer
you purchased and the OS preinstalled on it. I remember my old Compaq
Presario 1200US coming with ME and a coupon for XP Home. When the upgrade
cd arrived it only worked on the Compaq and I had no control over the
installation process.
 
Sory all that I used JW's computer for my last post.
Colin,
So I can purchase a retail upgrade edition and it can replace my 32bit MCE
OS with VISTA 64, however, I can not put the new OS on a different drive or
in a different partion and dual boot between them.
Can it do the same if instead of the MCE OS if I allready have VISTA 32 bit
installed? If not how does one upgade from VISTA 32 to VISTA 64 on a 64 bit
system?
 
Insert the x64 dvd and boot the system. Since x64 Setup is itself a 64bit
app it cannot run on the Vista x86 desktop. x64 dvd's differ in that the
upgrade edition Setup does not require you to run from the legacy desktop.

When you enter the upgrade edition product key Setup will scan the system
for qualifying installations of Windows. Since you cannot do an
upgrade-in-place to migrate from x86 to x64 you will only be able to do a
custom installation. That means that your files, settings, and apps cannot
be preserved so be sure to use the Windows Easy Transfer wizard to save your
files and settings in x86 for restoration after x64 is installed. You will
have to reinstall your apps. The WET wizard is both x86 and x64 compatible,
so there should not be any problems.
 
I understand the sequence.
Hopefully my last question on thie: when the separatly purchased X64 upgrade
is installed in the new partition does the MCE or X32 installation still
remain bootable so you can boot from either one?
 
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